Voice recognition helps a manual process

Today, Aug 2002 by Spencer, Harvey

The MailCom show demonstrated a simple use of voice recognition to speed up the sorting of incoming mail. A mail sorter stands in front of the corporate mail bins to do a manual sort of the incoming mail. The system as demonstrated by MailCode, a subsidiary of Pitney Bowes, allowed the mail sorter to read the first two letters of the addressee's name followed by his last name into a headset microphone. The system then accessed a corporate database and displayed the name of the addressee on a CRT, read it back to the mail sorter and told him which mail sorting bin to put the piece in. I was told that this process would speed up mail sorting from 125-150 pieces of mail per hour to 500-600 pieces per hour based on the use of 80 bins. It can also improve the process when staff leave, or to balance the load. kA single station system costs $14,000 while a networked system costs $50,000. Assuming a mail sorter gets paid an average of $10/hr., the savings/piece are 5 cents. The cost of the single user system can be recovered with just over 1/4 million pieces or about 1.250/day over one year.

Harvey Spencer of Harvey Spencer Associates (www.harveyspencer.com) is contributing editor of TODAY. He can be reached at 631-368-8393 or at harvey@harveyspencercom.